Ever notice those who seem to have a lot don’t seem to really want it? Those who want a lot never seem to have enough? The problem is not wanting or having no wants. Wanting is pretty irrelevant, and this is a good thing. There is an old Sufi curse, ‘may your every wish be immediately fulfilled‘. Can you imagine what your life would be like then? Some one pisses you off, and you wish they would just crawl off and die? The planet would be lifeless.

In your “great wisdom” you might set a resolution for yourself, and it might go very far forward. It may look like you’re getting exactly what you want, and you might discover it sucks. But like the day that starts with the imagining that it’s going to be bad or imagining it’s good, with that understanding of imagining what will your year ultimately be like? If you let it be? You won’t be able to make it be. A year spent making things happen is like what? Anyone ever had a year spent making things happen?

Plenty of people do. We all know the types. The young father who has a heart attack likely made things happen even at home. Have you prospered truly by making things work? The trouble is that in all the making, something is inevitably missed. And that’s the problem. Thus why they say in Taoism, the “slacker” philosophy is the sage does no great thing, and yet nothing is left undone. They are known for being long lived people.

My whole family are like this, trying and making all of the time but feeling like martyrs.And what happens to martyrs? They die, before they die. Then they die again. Doesn’t that sort of run counter to life? Zombies in suits walking around. What do the execs constantly say they want? Brains do they not? Always demanding brains. Then they consume the brains, burn out and destroy the brainy people.

The Tao of governing. It’s said that if in anything you do, you encounter resistance, including in contemplating a new years resolution, it isn’t that the thing itself is wrong. Reality itself, any part of that reality, is in fact never wrong. Everything is perfect. Perfectly what it is. The Tao is never out of order so when you pursue something, trying harder isn’t the way

What is the way then? The way is broad. There is the way of nature. There is your personal way. There is my personal way.

When you meet resistance? Ah, know what you seek better. Which usually means know yourself. Don’t push yourself. Can you listen well while plugging your ears and yelling at the top of your voice? This is what you do when you push yourself in the face of resistance. Know yourself and it won’t be a problem. The spin doctors in politics aren’t “forceful”, they know people.

So resistance is not to be fought against? No, it’s not. Resistance arises because you were fighting anyway. You might not have even realized it.

In relationship is it the same? Yes, in a relationship if resistance is there, you don’t overcome it by resisting it. The legendary romantics didn’t force any of their partners. They had a sense of the way of romance or just of sexual attraction. If your heart is in it you likely won’t even see the resistance and it will often not be an issue. The heart doesn’t argue with itself. That’s the minds thing. The heart tends to just behave how it behaves. Love what it loves. Believe what it believes. Complication is a thinking thing.

So the irrationality isn’t a problem. It’s the denial of irrationality. The deification or rationality. We don’t permit our own wholeness.